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Happy Labor Day
Sep. 6th, 2021 11:07 pmNice weather came back again, happily -- it was a bit humid this morning, but it feels like it's dried out again now, which is good. Makes it easier to get to sleep! I personally did not do much labor on this day, given I had the day off work, but I did get through my to-do list:
1. Edit some more on "Londerland Bloodlines": Check – suddenly, writing about going through the Ocean House Hotel feels almost RELAXING after today’s Bloodlines session (see below about the bullshit I encountered in that museum mission). Alice has used the dumbwaiter to get into the kitchen, grabbed Dorothy’s diary, and then avoided the wrath of Ed until he accidentally knocked down the door to allow her to get out of the room. Whoops! :P Don’t worry, Alice, you’ve got one of the key items of the level now – just two more to go, and you’re home free! Well, sewer free, anyway. :P
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs and listen to a bit more Lore By Night: Check, though hilariously, Spiffing Brit putting up a Fallout 4 video and OXBox doing an early list video means I’m ending my long weekend with things in my Watch Later. At least I should have time to watch them this upcoming weekend since I don't have to clean my room?
A) Okay, this popped up in my Recommendeds and I had to take a look at it – “Which Occult has the strongest genes? // Occult baby challenge!” YouTuber Whiny Brit decided to take an alien, a mermaid, a spellcaster, and a vampire and do a breeding challenge – have the spellcaster and the vampire have a baby, have the alien and the mermaid have a baby, and then have the two babies have a baby to see which occult reigned supreme in the bloodline! Results were – inconclusive, really. Mostly because while the vampire/spellcaster pairing did indeed result in a vampire (as guessed by WB), the alien/mermaid pairing apparently resulted in an ordinary human. O.o So WB had the vampire/spellcaster child try for baby with the alien, and got another vampire (though with some mermaid scale details, apparently). So it seems vampires have the strongest “genes” – but the comments indicated that breeding occults with each other is just plain broken as you can get accidental hybrids that break the game (like alien/mermaids who can’t have proper alternate forms because the game can’t support three). So, uh, good to know, I guess? I wasn’t actually really planning on my Chill Save Victor and Alice having kids anyway. . .
B) Then over in my Subs, we had Call Me Kevin and the final episode of his Buddy Simulator 1984 playthrough! Which was – pretty wild, I have to say. Kevin and his friends fought some more rats; Kevin prioritized petting his glitchy dog over doing a lever puzzle, forcing the AI to skip him to the boss fight; Kevin found his way to a party in his honor where the AI forced him to repeatedly kill his dog (earning Kevin’s eternal ire); Kevin went to sleep in-game and woke up in a first-person 3-D view, where the AI proceeded to absolutely spam him with mini-games with all the villagers (feed this guy shapes, pop this person’s bubbles, watch this person through the window); the AI finally took Kevin away from all that and turned everything into a “run away from the terrifying hand” horror game because it was pissed at him; Kevin managed to get free by talking to Tortley the NPC somehow; and the game asked him to forgive him before closing itself. Very weird, but definitely worth it for Kevin’s reactions. XD Might have to look it up later to see what the actual plot is supposed to be. XD
C) After supper, I popped over to Lore By Night to listen to a few episodes, namely –
I. “Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Character Creation Guide” – exactly the same as the V5 version, only focusing on the older V20 version that uses the classic system without stuff like “predator type” and whatnot. His sample character was a Nosferatu named Pink, who sells guns and secrets out of his old van and was a survivor of a life of constantly being an outcast. It was fun stuff, and an interesting contrast to V5 character “Sexy Steve.” XD
II. “Ghouls” – skipped forward a few episodes to listen to the one on ghouls, since I and my Malkavian!Alice are rather fond of them and want to see them treated well. Interestingly, the Narrator of these episodes basically considers them a kind of “vampire lite,” since they struggle against a Beast and the temptation to Frenzy, and can use Disciplines (at low levels) and pick up lesser versions of clan curses and whatnot. And apparently, back in the REALLY old days, they were treated a lot more fairly by vampire kind, simply because there were so many of them and they were seen as more equal. Also, the Narrator REALLY loves his dogs, so don’t screw with them.
III. “Ghoul & Revenant Character Creation Guide (V20 Edition)” – next episode in the line from the Ghouls ep, and it paired nicely with the V20 Kindred creation guide, so why not? Learned a few interesting things – according to this, Victor could actually pick up Obfuscate up to Level 3 from Alice (his 8th-generation domitor) if he kept drinking her blood and she instructed him in its use – and I bet you she would, simply because being able to creep around invisibly has helped her in so many situations. *nods* There’s also a V5 version of creating a ghoul character the podcast has done recently that I plan to listen to at a later date, because hell, this is fun. :)
D) And then, to wrap things up, we of course had GrayStillPlays and more Happy Wheels! Featuring such boards as a glass fall in a helicopter (Gray won, though it cost his character pretty much all of their limbs); a pogo jump over spikes, that ends in crawling under a bunch of spikes – and then having to think fast to get past some homing mines (Gray angrily accused the board creator of being the devil, but eventually won after sacrificing his helmet); a ride in the most destructive pencil eraser with spiky wheels you have ever seen (Gray LOOOVED this one); a ball fall complicated by the fact that all the balls were rotating and the Knockoff Indiana Jones’s character having a very fragile head (also the fact that the win area does NOT extend to the sides – Gray had to do it at least one extra time because he reached the bottom but fell PAST the win); a very unfair death fall featuring fans and crossbows and a trio of wrecking balls (that Gray ACCIDENTALLY CHEATED by going backwards because he thought it was a secret win, not the actual win); a most unfair pogo spike drop paired with a very difficult rope swing (Gray managed to get both wins after many, many tries and many, many instances of ripping his own legs off with the pogo stick); and a simple shooting gallery level themed after Rick and Morty (eh, rather small potatoes after the incredible Spongebob Squarepants level last time he played this game). Good times – good, bloody, limb-ripping times. XD
3. Play more Bloodlines and do the museum mission: Check, though WOO BOY, was that a pain in the ass! I’d forgotten how difficult this level is if you don’t have Obfuscate and if you’re doing Pisha’s missions and thus picking up the fetish statue. *facepalm* Getting into the museum and through the office and stuff wasn’t too difficult, but the lower levels? With the guards and the cameras and whatnot? Uuuuuggh. >( I had to reload SO MANY TIMES because Crystal kept getting caught – and let me tell you, “Command” is USELESS. Even if they’re supposedly in a trance, they will still spot you, and it’s so easy to bump them! “Brain Wipe” was more useful, but even then I still had to deal with NPCs getting right in the way of where I wanted to go. I eventually gave up on a full-stealth run and started just shooting cameras down, hitting “Brain Wipe” whenever I was surrounded by guards, and scrambling around trying not to get lost or lose too much blood. Hell, I FRENZIED for the very first time in a playthrough during one of my reloads! Took me AGES to work out where the hell the fetish statue was too (I forgot you had to break into it by literally smashing through a window) – I actually nearly found my way down to the sarcophagus before I back-tracked to get it! *huffs* Alice, honey, you should get down on your knees and thank Caine you have the Disciplines that make this easy. Thaumaturgy might be the most overpowered Discipline, but from my experience, Dementation wipes the floor with Dominate. *grumbles*
Anyway, I did eventually get the statue and discover the sarcophagus was stolen, all without killing anyone. Had the conversation with Beckett that raises your Scholarship (went with Crystal going “vampires are a predatory species, like lions”), then ended up back in Santa Monica, so I had Crystal go home to see Heather – and discover we’re up to the “Heather lures a guy back home for Crystal to eat” scenario. XD Crystal managed to persuade him to go peacefully, but damn. As if she hasn’t already had such a night. . .we’re talking about that once I load up the game again, Heather!
4. Get in a workout: Check – got on the treadmill today, like I said I would yesterday, and got through some more of Jon’s Original FO4 Playthrough! I finished up Episode 23, watching the rest of Kellogg’s memories with the kidnapping of Shaun and the stay in Diamond City (with Past!Jon wondering who the hell Kellogg was even talking to when he “activated” people and things to hear other memories – given that Kellogg has enough sense of self to slip in one last jab as Nick when the whole experience ends, I think whatever’s left of him knows that the Sole Survivor is looking through his memories and is narrating just for the hell of it. Would also explain why you’re still third person, maybe?) and discovering the great teleportation secret of the Institute! With Past!Jon even wondering if the Shaun from the latter memory is in fact the Shaun they’re looking for, or if he’s like a Shaun Jr or a robot. Pretty close, Past!Jon! I look forward to your reaction to the truth.
Anyway, once the memory sequence was over with, Miss Jon talked with Dr. Amari about their new lead of Virgil, the former Institute Bioscience guy hiding in the Glowing Sea, caught up with Nick (with Past!Jon being quite concerned about the “mnemonic impressions” moment – don’t worry, Past!Jon, Kellogg only had enough juice in him for one last shot), then started making plans to enter said Glowing Sea – AFTER taking care of the Silver Shroud quest because fun. XD Though it took me a while to actually FIND that episode once 23 ended – the automatic play thing tried to take me to episode 24 ¾, which is a follow-up to the ACTUAL episode 24 regarding the Shroud. I had to do some searching to actually find it – in fact, I took a quick break while looking through my Recommendeds to check out an update video of his from today, stating that he was giving himself Mondays off new videos (good for you Jon), and that the newest series would be a playthrough of Dragon’s Age: Origins, so that’ll be good for those who like that game! :) But I did eventually track down episode 24, with Miss Jon and MacCready heading into Hubris Comics to kill the ghouls there, pick up the Silver Shroud costume, deliver it to Kent, and then take on the mantle of the Silver Shroud with the upgraded armor. . .
And to my extreme disappointment, Past!Jon chose to simply do the quest as Miss Jon. AKA, not wearing the costume because the game didn’t make him. Just – gunning down the first two targets as fast as possible -- I stopped before he went to see Whitechapel Charlie about the third. :( On the other hand, though, I suspect this is why there is a 24 ¾ episode after this one – namely, I think someone in the comments of the original episode 24 told him “hey, you get unique dialogue if you do this PROPERLY and it’s funny,” so he reloaded and did it the RIGHT way. A girl can hope!
5. Get more done with tumblr queues: Check – almost completely drafted out an idea I have for Victors in more modern AUs (namely, that they’d like making little LEGO Mindstorms robots or the like – I’ve grown to like a somewhat-more-“techy” Victor after spending so much time building up my Sole Survivor version’s backstory as a guy who knows robots and mechanical things for “Fallout of Darkness”); did a quick “okay here’s an idea I want to talk about” draft post for my “Londerland Bloodlines” Alice (figuring out her “predator type” according to V5 rules); and throwing in a reblog of a nice Preston picture for good measure, all for Victor Luvs Alice. Feel like I’m making decent progress, keeping ahead of the curve here. :)
Additionally:
-->Answered my latest FF.net PM this morning, yay. Trying to keep up on those a little better!
-->Another round of beanbags today, due to the return of the nice weather – and I had a VERY good day today! W-W-3-W-2! :D Dad got 2-2-W-2-W, while poor Mom got 3-3-2-3-3 – oh, how the mighty have fallen. I was pulling for her to get at least one game, but can’t deny it feels good to be the champ. :p
So yeah, can't say I have anything to complain about. Beyond needing to go to work tomorrow, but that's just a general complaint, really. *sigh* Welp, back to the USUAL grind this week. With no more half-day Fridays to make things easier. Meh. :( Gotta just push through, though. Night all!
1. Edit some more on "Londerland Bloodlines": Check – suddenly, writing about going through the Ocean House Hotel feels almost RELAXING after today’s Bloodlines session (see below about the bullshit I encountered in that museum mission). Alice has used the dumbwaiter to get into the kitchen, grabbed Dorothy’s diary, and then avoided the wrath of Ed until he accidentally knocked down the door to allow her to get out of the room. Whoops! :P Don’t worry, Alice, you’ve got one of the key items of the level now – just two more to go, and you’re home free! Well, sewer free, anyway. :P
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs and listen to a bit more Lore By Night: Check, though hilariously, Spiffing Brit putting up a Fallout 4 video and OXBox doing an early list video means I’m ending my long weekend with things in my Watch Later. At least I should have time to watch them this upcoming weekend since I don't have to clean my room?
A) Okay, this popped up in my Recommendeds and I had to take a look at it – “Which Occult has the strongest genes? // Occult baby challenge!” YouTuber Whiny Brit decided to take an alien, a mermaid, a spellcaster, and a vampire and do a breeding challenge – have the spellcaster and the vampire have a baby, have the alien and the mermaid have a baby, and then have the two babies have a baby to see which occult reigned supreme in the bloodline! Results were – inconclusive, really. Mostly because while the vampire/spellcaster pairing did indeed result in a vampire (as guessed by WB), the alien/mermaid pairing apparently resulted in an ordinary human. O.o So WB had the vampire/spellcaster child try for baby with the alien, and got another vampire (though with some mermaid scale details, apparently). So it seems vampires have the strongest “genes” – but the comments indicated that breeding occults with each other is just plain broken as you can get accidental hybrids that break the game (like alien/mermaids who can’t have proper alternate forms because the game can’t support three). So, uh, good to know, I guess? I wasn’t actually really planning on my Chill Save Victor and Alice having kids anyway. . .
B) Then over in my Subs, we had Call Me Kevin and the final episode of his Buddy Simulator 1984 playthrough! Which was – pretty wild, I have to say. Kevin and his friends fought some more rats; Kevin prioritized petting his glitchy dog over doing a lever puzzle, forcing the AI to skip him to the boss fight; Kevin found his way to a party in his honor where the AI forced him to repeatedly kill his dog (earning Kevin’s eternal ire); Kevin went to sleep in-game and woke up in a first-person 3-D view, where the AI proceeded to absolutely spam him with mini-games with all the villagers (feed this guy shapes, pop this person’s bubbles, watch this person through the window); the AI finally took Kevin away from all that and turned everything into a “run away from the terrifying hand” horror game because it was pissed at him; Kevin managed to get free by talking to Tortley the NPC somehow; and the game asked him to forgive him before closing itself. Very weird, but definitely worth it for Kevin’s reactions. XD Might have to look it up later to see what the actual plot is supposed to be. XD
C) After supper, I popped over to Lore By Night to listen to a few episodes, namely –
I. “Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Character Creation Guide” – exactly the same as the V5 version, only focusing on the older V20 version that uses the classic system without stuff like “predator type” and whatnot. His sample character was a Nosferatu named Pink, who sells guns and secrets out of his old van and was a survivor of a life of constantly being an outcast. It was fun stuff, and an interesting contrast to V5 character “Sexy Steve.” XD
II. “Ghouls” – skipped forward a few episodes to listen to the one on ghouls, since I and my Malkavian!Alice are rather fond of them and want to see them treated well. Interestingly, the Narrator of these episodes basically considers them a kind of “vampire lite,” since they struggle against a Beast and the temptation to Frenzy, and can use Disciplines (at low levels) and pick up lesser versions of clan curses and whatnot. And apparently, back in the REALLY old days, they were treated a lot more fairly by vampire kind, simply because there were so many of them and they were seen as more equal. Also, the Narrator REALLY loves his dogs, so don’t screw with them.
III. “Ghoul & Revenant Character Creation Guide (V20 Edition)” – next episode in the line from the Ghouls ep, and it paired nicely with the V20 Kindred creation guide, so why not? Learned a few interesting things – according to this, Victor could actually pick up Obfuscate up to Level 3 from Alice (his 8th-generation domitor) if he kept drinking her blood and she instructed him in its use – and I bet you she would, simply because being able to creep around invisibly has helped her in so many situations. *nods* There’s also a V5 version of creating a ghoul character the podcast has done recently that I plan to listen to at a later date, because hell, this is fun. :)
D) And then, to wrap things up, we of course had GrayStillPlays and more Happy Wheels! Featuring such boards as a glass fall in a helicopter (Gray won, though it cost his character pretty much all of their limbs); a pogo jump over spikes, that ends in crawling under a bunch of spikes – and then having to think fast to get past some homing mines (Gray angrily accused the board creator of being the devil, but eventually won after sacrificing his helmet); a ride in the most destructive pencil eraser with spiky wheels you have ever seen (Gray LOOOVED this one); a ball fall complicated by the fact that all the balls were rotating and the Knockoff Indiana Jones’s character having a very fragile head (also the fact that the win area does NOT extend to the sides – Gray had to do it at least one extra time because he reached the bottom but fell PAST the win); a very unfair death fall featuring fans and crossbows and a trio of wrecking balls (that Gray ACCIDENTALLY CHEATED by going backwards because he thought it was a secret win, not the actual win); a most unfair pogo spike drop paired with a very difficult rope swing (Gray managed to get both wins after many, many tries and many, many instances of ripping his own legs off with the pogo stick); and a simple shooting gallery level themed after Rick and Morty (eh, rather small potatoes after the incredible Spongebob Squarepants level last time he played this game). Good times – good, bloody, limb-ripping times. XD
3. Play more Bloodlines and do the museum mission: Check, though WOO BOY, was that a pain in the ass! I’d forgotten how difficult this level is if you don’t have Obfuscate and if you’re doing Pisha’s missions and thus picking up the fetish statue. *facepalm* Getting into the museum and through the office and stuff wasn’t too difficult, but the lower levels? With the guards and the cameras and whatnot? Uuuuuggh. >( I had to reload SO MANY TIMES because Crystal kept getting caught – and let me tell you, “Command” is USELESS. Even if they’re supposedly in a trance, they will still spot you, and it’s so easy to bump them! “Brain Wipe” was more useful, but even then I still had to deal with NPCs getting right in the way of where I wanted to go. I eventually gave up on a full-stealth run and started just shooting cameras down, hitting “Brain Wipe” whenever I was surrounded by guards, and scrambling around trying not to get lost or lose too much blood. Hell, I FRENZIED for the very first time in a playthrough during one of my reloads! Took me AGES to work out where the hell the fetish statue was too (I forgot you had to break into it by literally smashing through a window) – I actually nearly found my way down to the sarcophagus before I back-tracked to get it! *huffs* Alice, honey, you should get down on your knees and thank Caine you have the Disciplines that make this easy. Thaumaturgy might be the most overpowered Discipline, but from my experience, Dementation wipes the floor with Dominate. *grumbles*
Anyway, I did eventually get the statue and discover the sarcophagus was stolen, all without killing anyone. Had the conversation with Beckett that raises your Scholarship (went with Crystal going “vampires are a predatory species, like lions”), then ended up back in Santa Monica, so I had Crystal go home to see Heather – and discover we’re up to the “Heather lures a guy back home for Crystal to eat” scenario. XD Crystal managed to persuade him to go peacefully, but damn. As if she hasn’t already had such a night. . .we’re talking about that once I load up the game again, Heather!
4. Get in a workout: Check – got on the treadmill today, like I said I would yesterday, and got through some more of Jon’s Original FO4 Playthrough! I finished up Episode 23, watching the rest of Kellogg’s memories with the kidnapping of Shaun and the stay in Diamond City (with Past!Jon wondering who the hell Kellogg was even talking to when he “activated” people and things to hear other memories – given that Kellogg has enough sense of self to slip in one last jab as Nick when the whole experience ends, I think whatever’s left of him knows that the Sole Survivor is looking through his memories and is narrating just for the hell of it. Would also explain why you’re still third person, maybe?) and discovering the great teleportation secret of the Institute! With Past!Jon even wondering if the Shaun from the latter memory is in fact the Shaun they’re looking for, or if he’s like a Shaun Jr or a robot. Pretty close, Past!Jon! I look forward to your reaction to the truth.
Anyway, once the memory sequence was over with, Miss Jon talked with Dr. Amari about their new lead of Virgil, the former Institute Bioscience guy hiding in the Glowing Sea, caught up with Nick (with Past!Jon being quite concerned about the “mnemonic impressions” moment – don’t worry, Past!Jon, Kellogg only had enough juice in him for one last shot), then started making plans to enter said Glowing Sea – AFTER taking care of the Silver Shroud quest because fun. XD Though it took me a while to actually FIND that episode once 23 ended – the automatic play thing tried to take me to episode 24 ¾, which is a follow-up to the ACTUAL episode 24 regarding the Shroud. I had to do some searching to actually find it – in fact, I took a quick break while looking through my Recommendeds to check out an update video of his from today, stating that he was giving himself Mondays off new videos (good for you Jon), and that the newest series would be a playthrough of Dragon’s Age: Origins, so that’ll be good for those who like that game! :) But I did eventually track down episode 24, with Miss Jon and MacCready heading into Hubris Comics to kill the ghouls there, pick up the Silver Shroud costume, deliver it to Kent, and then take on the mantle of the Silver Shroud with the upgraded armor. . .
And to my extreme disappointment, Past!Jon chose to simply do the quest as Miss Jon. AKA, not wearing the costume because the game didn’t make him. Just – gunning down the first two targets as fast as possible -- I stopped before he went to see Whitechapel Charlie about the third. :( On the other hand, though, I suspect this is why there is a 24 ¾ episode after this one – namely, I think someone in the comments of the original episode 24 told him “hey, you get unique dialogue if you do this PROPERLY and it’s funny,” so he reloaded and did it the RIGHT way. A girl can hope!
5. Get more done with tumblr queues: Check – almost completely drafted out an idea I have for Victors in more modern AUs (namely, that they’d like making little LEGO Mindstorms robots or the like – I’ve grown to like a somewhat-more-“techy” Victor after spending so much time building up my Sole Survivor version’s backstory as a guy who knows robots and mechanical things for “Fallout of Darkness”); did a quick “okay here’s an idea I want to talk about” draft post for my “Londerland Bloodlines” Alice (figuring out her “predator type” according to V5 rules); and throwing in a reblog of a nice Preston picture for good measure, all for Victor Luvs Alice. Feel like I’m making decent progress, keeping ahead of the curve here. :)
Additionally:
-->Answered my latest FF.net PM this morning, yay. Trying to keep up on those a little better!
-->Another round of beanbags today, due to the return of the nice weather – and I had a VERY good day today! W-W-3-W-2! :D Dad got 2-2-W-2-W, while poor Mom got 3-3-2-3-3 – oh, how the mighty have fallen. I was pulling for her to get at least one game, but can’t deny it feels good to be the champ. :p
So yeah, can't say I have anything to complain about. Beyond needing to go to work tomorrow, but that's just a general complaint, really. *sigh* Welp, back to the USUAL grind this week. With no more half-day Fridays to make things easier. Meh. :( Gotta just push through, though. Night all!
